Sunday, April 17, 2005

Why don't you take notes for us?

I was a weird kid. When everyone else was struggling with their capital letters in second grade, I was already writing in cursive. I have a sample of my signature from fourth grade, and it's pretty much the same as my signature today. I take sinister pleasure in the precision of my block letters and the elegance of my script.

But at the same time, my handwriting has been my curse, thanks to the theories of the group dynamic and team building. In every group meeting, in every group project, in every science experiment I was the "secretary." Though, the feminist movement quickly changed "secretary" to "recorder" in high school. What it meant was that I never really got to look through the microscope in chemistry class because I was furiously taking notes. This haunts me even today in research group meetings where I don't get to contribute much to the brainstorming conversations because I'm furiously taking notes.

I've decided I want to be bad at handwriting again. The best way to do that is to start learning Hiragana.